For 20 years, the blighted New York Coliseum stood vacant on Columbus Circle. Finally, on February 4, 2004, 5,000 people came together for the grand opening of its replacement: the Time Warner Center. The complex, which was developed by The Related Companies and Apollo Real Estate Advisors, houses the 879,000-squarefoot headquarters of Time Warner; 211,000 square feet of office space called 60 Columbus Circle; 191 luxury condominiums, whose average selling price is in excess of $2,100 a square foot; the new home of Jazz at Lincoln Center; a 504-car parking garage, a 40,000-square-foot Equinox health club; the 347,000-square-foot retail space called The Shops at Columbus Circle, which includes a 57,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market; 251-room Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and showcase restaurants. One real estate leader called the complex “the eighth wonder of the world.”

The president of The Related Companies, Jeff Blau, has often said of the $1.7 billion, 2.8 million-square-foot complex, “Time Warner Center is the Rockefeller Center of the 21st century.” The chairman of global brokerage resources at CB Richard Ellis, Stephen Siegel, said, “The center has changed the face of New York forever. I think it is a project similar to the development of Rockefeller Center in 1929, yet the area around the project does not allow it to become the Rockefeller Center region.”

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On the other hand, one of New York’s leading owners of residential properties said, “There is nothing special at the complex. I do not like it, and I do not think it works. It takes too long to get inside.” A partner at one of the city’s leading commercial office development firms said, “I like the complex but I do not understand why so many people are purchasing residences at this location, to be located on the top of a mall.”

Over the past year, I have asked many real estate executives what their thoughts are on the retail shops. In January 2004, when I asked Stephen Siegel, he said, “I do not think vertical malls work.” Perhaps Mr. Siegel’s thoughts related to all of the vertical malls developed in the 1980s. Manhattan’s first vertical mall was the Prudential Insurance Company and Donald Trump’s famed Trump Tower, which opened in 1983. In 1985, the former E. J. Korvette, located directly across from Macy’s on 34th Street, was converted into the city’s second vertical mall, Herald Center. The third major vertical mall, which proved to be less than successful, was developed in the former home of Gimbel Brothers on 32nd Street as A&S Plaza by a partnership of Larry Silverstein and Melvin Simon in 1989. Until the success of the mixed-use complex at Time Warner Center, these three projects, as well as similar ones on Fifth Avenue and 47th Street and in office buildings on Third Avenue, have had little success.

The first successful vertical complex was Chicago’s 700,000-square foot Water Tower Place, which was opened in 1975 on Michigan Avenue, as a combination of retail shops, a hotel, office space, residential condominiums, and a parking garage. Water Tower Place, developed by the Rouse Company, is a 74-story mixed-use complex containing an eight-level shopping center, The Ritz Carlton Chicago, restaurants, corporate and professional office space, condo residences, and parking.

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This past October, Jeff Blau, speaking at a seminar I chaired, said, “The sales at the center are exceeding $1,000 per square foot, the highest in the nation, exceeding the shops at Caesar Palace in Las Vegas.” Not everyone agrees with Mr. Blau, as noted by any number of real estate leaders, who say that whenever they visit the shops, the only place they see customers leaving with shopping bags is the Whole Foods Market.

The chief executive officer at Cushman & Wakefield, Bruce Mosler, told me, “The retail aspect, particularly Whole Foods, has been a greater success than most envisioned. European retailers want to be in the center, but can’t find space on the ground floor. On a neighborhood basis, expectations of retail rents have gone up. Owners and brokers are marketing nearby space as ‘close to Time Warner Center.’ “

In February 2003, MacFarlane Partners agreed to purchase 49.5% of the retail space, the office space not occupied by Time Warner, and the center’s parking structure from the developers, Apollo and Related. The purchase price was not set until two years later on January 31, but its value was estimated to be between $425 million and $500 million. Additionally, MacFarlane Partners acquired a $359 million participating interest in the project’s $1.22 billion GMAC Commercial Mortgage construction loan. Lastly, MacFarlane Partners invested in a fund that owns and operates Chef Thomas Keller’s Per Se, Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s V Steakhouse, and the upscale lounge bar in the center. MacFarlane Partner’s investment was made through a joint venture with the California Employees’ Retirement System.

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According to the principal at Lodging Advisors, Sean Hennessey, the average occupancy rate last year for Manhattan hotels was 79.5%. The New York Sun has learned that the Mandarin Oriental achieved an occupancy rate of 65%. “It takes a few years before the corporate executives decide to move from the St. Regis or the Four Seasons coupled with the fact that the hotel fails to have adequate conference facilities,” Mr. Hennessey said. The banquet and catering facility located on the 36th floor of the hotel is booked for up to three years. It’s profiting from the removal of competition from the banquet operations at the Plaza Hotel, which will close for renovations on April 30.

The neighborhood adjacent to the complex is undergoing major changes. Directly across the street from the center, this spring, Thompson Hotels will open their latest hotel: 6 Columbus. A principal of Thompson Hotels, Michael Pomeranc, said, “I think that the complex is very new and very unique to New York.” On the same block is Ian Schrager’s Hudson Hotel, which opened in 2000.

In 2007, the developers plan to open a luxury condominium on the former site of the Mayflower Hotel and the vacant lot adjacent to it. Jim Fitzgerald, the head of real estate for north America for HSH-Nordbank, one of the lenders providing the acquisition financing for the site, says, “This is the best real estate in all of Manhattan. Many of the residential condominiums will have spectacular views of Central Park and Columbus Circle.” He added, “This complex will have fantastic retail on Broadway, which will only complement the Time Warner Center.”

Last month, the city’s Department of Finance released a report that the market value of New York City real estate rose 14% last year. The average selling price per square foot of a residential condominium has increased by close to 30% since the opening of the residential condominiums in the Time Warner Center. More than 90% of the units have been sold at an average price in excess of $2,000 a square foot. According to the trade, residential condominiums at the new development at the Mayflower site will start from $2,500 to $3,000 a square foot.

A number of major residential rental and luxury condominiums are scheduled to be built in the area. These developments include the 550,000-square-foot, 38-story residential building called The Helena Durst Organization on West 57th Street and 11th Avenue. This spring, construction is planned to commence a few blocks north on West End Avenue on a 275-unit luxury condominium, a 10-story affordable housing development, and a 25-story market-rate residential rental building.

As the principal of Muss Development, Josh Muss, who has participated in the redevelopment of Downtown Brooklyn, told me, “Real estate development sometimes takes up to 20 years to see the finalization of a project.” The first major redevelopment in the Columbus Circle neighborhood took place in 1997 with the opening of Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Columbus Circle. The combination of the new hotels, retail, and residential condominiums at the Mayflower site, and of the properties in the area might result in this region becoming a Rockefeller Center of the 21st century.

The Time Warner Center has energized the neighborhood. The combination of the center, the planned residential condominium and retail units at the Mayflower site, the tower addition to the Hearst Building on the corner of West 58th Street and Eighth Avenue, coupled with the renovations of the office buildings has truly changed the neighborhood. I agree with Bruce Mosler who has said, “The center is uptown’s strongest indicator of the inexorable march of the Midtown office and mixed-use buildings westward to the Hudson River.”

Mr. Stoler is a television broadcaster and vice president at First American Title Insurance Company of New York. He can be reached at mstoler@nysun.com.